HijackThis can either save this info as a plain text logfile or disable the found items. Caution should be exercised when using the latter option, as HijackThis does not discriminate between legimate and unwanted items - thus allowing a user to unintentionally disable important programs from running, which may possibly cause their system or peripherals to stop working. HijackThis will, however, create backups of the files and registry entries it removes, which can be used to restore the system in the event of a mistake.

A common tradition is to post the logfile to some web board/forum where more experienced users will help decipher which entries need to be removed. Automated tools also exist that analyze saved logs and attempt to provide recommendations to the user, or to clean entries automatically. Use of such tools, however, is generally recommended against by those who specialize in manually dealing with HijackThis logs; they consider the tools to be potentially dangerous to inexperienced users, and not accurate and reliable enough to substitute consulting a trained human analyzer.

Later versions of HijackThis include additional tools like a task manager, hosts file editor and alternate data stream scanner. HijackThis is property of Merijn Bellekom .